How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

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supwiddiss
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How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by supwiddiss » Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:16 pm

i have an h7.ac receiver from tek. emailed him on some specifics. managed to get the dish setup and find g14 and intelsat 21 and my arc peaked.
i have so many questions but also read the guides here. great guides by the way.

i was a little confused on the h7 lnb inputs and how the tuners relate to them. can 1 lnb input be used in both dbs tuners? or 1 port, one c band lnb?
nothing tells which lnb in port is for lnb 1 or 2. i found out lnb 1 is the top port.
i borrowed a buddys fta receiver to set up my dish. it was taking way long to figure out what tuner settings for transponders to even locate the first satellite with the zgemma. lyngsat has not worked the best even for ku fta. they don't update often from what we've seen.

can i ask for a few tips to start finding satellites in the arc? my biggest mental block is, to find a c band satellite what transponder settings would i put in the signal finder? it seems the stock settings kept me moving the dish back and forth and still no signal. but an fta receiver helped me find my first 2 satellites in 10 minutes and to get the dish peaked.

i followed instructions for software blindscan but the selection only shows "accurate blindscan (dvb-s2/upper ku-band/sr=1000-3999)(90 minutes)
i'm sure i missed something. any way i scanned g14 and came up with channels.

my receiver is an h7.ac. i see all of the h7 models out there on the internet. what does the ac mean?

please understand i'm just coming into c band from ku fta. some of the guides look like the reader is a bit familiar. be kind please.

can someone guide me in the right direction please. just knowing what transponder setting for use for each satellite i log in signal finder would help alot.

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by dishcrank » Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:10 pm

Your zgemma should have the north american listings already scanned in - at least mine did! If you don't know where you are on the clarke belt, use FAST BLINDSCAN (DVB-S2/C-Band). It will find signals right away.

Menu - Setup - Service Searching - Manual Scan

Select Tuner A and Single Satellite for type of scan. Then scroll down to FAST BLINDSCAN (DVB-S2/C-Band). Select scan.

You can do the same for ku-band, but use FAST BLINDSCAN (DVB-S2/Ku-Band).

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by supwiddiss » Sat Sep 22, 2018 12:01 am

thanks. i hope help like this keeps coming in.
my biggest thing is finding an active transponder to enter in signal finder so when i move the dish i can find it.
looking at the blindscan file i'm assuming that it was put together by entering all possible tp configurations for every satellite.

i'm only concerned with c band. we got my friends motorized ku band dish setup pretty fast because the tp frequencies were already in the satellite list. when we found one the receiver said what satellite it was. then we scanned.

this is only my second day using the receiver. chased identifying lnb ports and verifying voltages at the lnb. i was sure the lnb was dead only because no matter how hard i tried i got nothing in signal finder. but putting his fta receiver in and setting it for 125 g14 worked fast to find it.
biggest thing is i now have 125w found and scanned. but finding the right transponder to enter so i could land on the satellite was hard.
lots of back and forth with the dish motor.

any tips would be so much appreciated.

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by supwiddiss » Sun Sep 23, 2018 1:10 pm

thanks. that's alot of help.

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by belter-one » Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:06 pm

Hello,

I found that once I had Galaxy 14's transponder for EVine peaked (3760 H 19886 3/4), then approximately, for each degree of longitude moved corresponds to ten (10) positioner points. So from Galaxy 14 at 94 on the positioner box, Galaxy 13 would be circa 20 points west of that at ~ 116 - 121 (depending on the sweet spot for the other transponders on this bird). This works well between 133W to 107W. I am not sure about the rest of the arc, as trees on our property slam the door on the rest of the clarke belt. Also, when EVine's transponder is peaked, I am able to get the Ku channels on Galaxy 14 as well, using a single C/Ku LNB from tek2000.

Hope this helps,

belter-one

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by supwiddiss » Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:25 pm

2 things I'm trying to figure out.
When I do a blindscan following the tutorial here for c-band all of my scans show as 140.1 W.
I'm working my way east from 133.1 W to 58 W. My horizon limit.
I cant find anyway in DreamSet to change or edit the satellite to change just the position name.
I'm doing a Fast Blindscan (DVB-S2/C-Band)(30 Minutes) 140.1 W.
I don't see an option to scan for 133.1 which I'm on now.
Every scan from every satellite I land on seems to show as a scan for 140.1 W

Also the Automatic Scan window is getting cluttered with a long list of yes/no's.
I'd like to clean that up. No clue how to.

Not as easy as things seem.

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by supwiddiss » Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:37 pm

belter-one wrote:
Mon Sep 24, 2018 1:06 pm
Hello,

I found that once I had Galaxy 14's transponder for EVine peaked (3760 H 19886 3/4), then approximately, for each degree of longitude moved corresponds to ten (10) positioner points. So from Galaxy 14 at 94 on the positioner box, Galaxy 13 would be circa 20 points west of that at ~ 116 - 121 (depending on the sweet spot for the other transponders on this bird). This works well between 133W to 107W. I am not sure about the rest of the arc, as trees on our property slam the door on the rest of the clarke belt. Also, when EVine's transponder is peaked, I am able to get the Ku channels on Galaxy 14 as well, using a single C/Ku LNB from tek2000.

Hope this helps,

belter-one
I'm getting about 28 pulse counts from aos/los on my dish. Logging counts to the next sat. Once I get that figuring where the next should be things will be easier.
Once I get a few more sats in the mix I can do a quick excel sheet to predict where the next one will be.
I was using Satbeams for transponders to set when I scan to locate using signal finder. Lyngsat looks a bit better.
Thanks for the tip.

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by supwiddiss » Tue Sep 25, 2018 8:49 pm

A frustrating thing I'm finding is using signal finder.
I've roughly figured out how many pulse counts on the dish mover I'm using equates to how many degrees.

Using signal finder is balky. I've got signals in the 60-70's. If and when the bar graph kicks in.
I'm finding I have to switch between modulation settings while going a few degrees at a time or I'll breeze right by a sat.
For example on the NASA 4K channel, All settings are correct. I know the dish is dead-nuts on. But no signal shows.
Switch from, for example, 8psk to qpsk and back. Blamo. Signal.
This isn't a very good signal locator.
Any clues to fix it?

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by Arion » Wed Sep 26, 2018 1:53 pm

Qpsk is easy to lock. 8Psk requires a higher signal to noise ratio to lock. If your getting qpsk signals and not some of the 8-psk signals as convinced as you are that the dish is correctly tuned your in error. I haven't read everything but your dish is either two small or it's not fine tuned as well as you think it is. If you can't get a higher signal by going a count or two in either direction then perhaps your elevation is off a mite or your LNB isn't adjusted in the holder as good as you might think.
10' Tek C-band dish, 1.2 meter KU band dish, ASC1 mover, Octagon/Zgemma/Edison dual band STB's. Running OpenPli on all.

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Re: How to search the clarke belt with an h7.

Post by supwiddiss » Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:09 am

What would you fugure is a "good" signal with a 10 foot dish?
I'm getting an average 13dB at 65% SNR and 68% AGC.
LNB positioning is peaked and dish is tweaked to track correctly.

How to get the blindscan files in the tutorial here to be for the correct sat? In the lower status bar while viewing a channel, every channle on every sat I scanned shows 140 W.

Thanks for the reply.

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